When French critic and film theorist André Bazin met an obnoxious and hyperactive film fanatic teenager during one of the movie screenings of his film society Objectif 49, he would never though he had been induced an enfant terrible of the world cinema. Started his intense love affair when he was eight years old, the teenager soon became a central figure of the renowned film magazine Cahiers du cinema and film societies in a war-torn Paris of the late 40s.
Francois Truffaut started his historic journey as a self-taught critic and filmmaker from this epoch and he was joined by other New Wave crusaders like Jean-Luc Godard, Suzanne Schiffman, Jean Gruault, Paul Gegauff, and Jean-Marie Straub, and together they unleashed the Jinn of French New Wave, whose ripples reached even the remotest corners of the world where cinema had been made.
This exclusive documentary explores François Truffaut both as an artist, who thrived to bring out the most of the cinema as an art, and a philanthropic philosopher, who delved deep into the depths of the human psyche in search of the meaning of life. Truffaut was a master of depicting the nuances of human emotions with his characteristic delicate touches.
What makes Truffaut distinct from his fellow French new wave filmmakers in the 50s and 60s was his attitude towards experimentation of cinematic form. He never believed in experimenting for its own sake and relied solely on the emotive powers of the raw materials he collected from real life, inside and around him. For someone who survived a nightmarish childhood, became an established filmmaker at the age of 27 and passed away because of a tumor at 52, making 23 features and led a life full of cinema is truly an epic.
Written By: Ragesh Dipu
